Mesh networks can be extremely dynamic and the resulting changes in network topology make a rapidly reconfigurable wireless backhaul solution necessary. Mesh networks provide certain advantages that are enabled by flexible routing.
Although various metrics are available for providing mesh routing, alternative metrics like ETT and IRU do not seem to have a lot of benefit once MIMO is introduced. Others work well in single radio meshes. Most research has been carried out on 802.11a/b/g networks. Even the metric for 802.11n, like eCOT, require RTS/CTS to be enabled. This like most other link aware metrics which seem to perform better with RTS/CTS but that in itself introduces a big hit on the throughput (RTS/CTS cannot be aggregated and are sent at 6 Mbps for the benefit of 802.11b devices). A planned static network seems to outperform these approaches. In any case 802.11 networks are not meant for highly mobile meshes. For them 802.11p support at the radio and the driver is desirable.